Human metabolic disorders such as diabetes mellitus Type I, diabetes mellitus Type II, metabolic syndrome, and insulin resistance are serious health conditions affecting over a third of the adult population in the United States. Although effective in delaying morbidity, standard treatments have not generally been able to reverse the associated damage of these disorders.
Chemicals, cytokines/hormones and stem cell or islet transplantation that boost or assist pancreatic regeneration have been used as diabetes therapy in order to augment or replace insulin injections by increasing the number of, or enhancing the function of, endogenous insulin-producing β-cells.
Diabetes mellitus Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes are characterized by progressive beta-cell failure. By far, stem/progenitor cell transplantation is the only therapy available for advanced stages of diabetes in an attempt to restore insulin production and replace insulin injection. However, besides ethical issues, technical and safety challenges in stem cell isolation, maintenance, expansion, donor-recipient matching and transplantation limit the efficacy of these strategies.
Accordingly, there is a need for safe, effective treatment protocols for metabolic disorders such as diabetes that may reverse pancreatic damage and inhibit development of these disorders.